Branbury Briars- Elizabeth Jensen(UT) 1947 Hubbard
[From: Ballads and Songs from Utah; Lester Hubbard, 1961.
R. Matteson 2016]
THE BRANBURY BRIARS- Sung by Elizabeth Jensen of Ogden, Sept. 2, 1947. she learned it, when she was a girl, from Eli Tracey in Huntsville.
Near Portsman town there lived a merchant,
Tho had two sons and a daughter fair;
A Portsman[1] bound boy, a firm inventor,[2]
Tho filled his children's hearts with care.
In evening as they were a-courting,
The brothers chanced for to overhear,
Saying, "This courting will soon be ended;
We'll send him headlong to the grave."
For to complete this bloody murder,
A-hunting they did entice him to go.
And unto this young man they both did flatter,
A-hunting with them for to go.
They wandered o'er high hills and hollows,
Down through a dark and a shady grove,
Until they came to the Branbury briars;
'Tis here they did him kill and throw.
The very next day they home return-ed,
The sister asked for the hired man.
"O we lost him in the woods a-hunting
And nothing of him could we find."
That very night as she lay lamenting,
Her lover came to her bedside and stood,
All dripping o'er in tears of weeping
And wallered o'er in gores of blood.
"Why weepest thou, my precious jewel,
After the race of humankind?
Your brothers have killed me, both harsh[2] and cruel,
In such a place you will me find."
She wanders o'er high hills and hollows,
Down through a dark and a shady grove,
Until she came to the Branbury briars;
'Tis here she found him killed and thrown.
His pretty lips with blood were dy-ed,
While lamenting tears stood in his eyes.
At first she sighed and then she cried,
"Oh, I've lost this bosom friend of mine."
Three days and nights she tarried by him,
Still kissing him on her bended knees,
Until at last she was heart-restrain-ed
To utter forth such words as these:
"My love, I promise to stay by thee
Until my heart it should break with woe;
But I feel sharp hunger come creeping o'er me,
Which forces me back home to go."
The very next day she home return-ed,
The brothers asked her where she had been.
"Oh, you most hardhearted and deceitful villains,
For my true love you both shall swing."
1. A prentice bound boy,
2. firm indenture;